Jay’s way: Sacramento school board president sees drama ahead with Trump administration, looming deficit

Jay Hansen became an appointed trustee of the Sacramento City Unified School District in 2012. Two years later, he campaigned for the position and won. Today, he is president of the school board, having been chosen by his fellow trustees to lead them.

It’s a big job. The district faces serious economic challenges even as it’s charting new directions and hiring a new superintendent. SN&R President and CEO Jeff vonKaenel recently interviewed Hansen and discovered that he doesn’t mince words when it comes to those challenges. (Editor’s note: The interview has been edited for clarity and length.)

How is the district doing?

We’re in a really interesting place now. We’re trying to figure out ways to make Sacramento’s schools more of a destination district than in the past. That means creating educational programs that are enticing and exciting for students and parents.

I just created an academic ad hoc committee to examine what kind of school programs we have—what kinds of civics programs at which schools, and what kinds of technical-education programs at which schools. And then I want to have a series of meetings that look at our different academic programs to see what we can do to build those out at schools that need something special. Some people don’t realize that two-thirds of students aren’t going to get a four-year college degree. The reality is that, no matter what, it is not going to be the pathway that a lot of students want to take.

The question for us is: How can we help those students be successful when they graduate from high school? What else can we help them prepare for—trade schools, the military, the construction industry—so they are ready to start a career right out of high school.

District finances seem fairly bleak, in terms of increased pension and health insurance costs. At November’s board meeting, the prediction was for a $22 million deficit in 2018.

We have some really serious challenges. We have to be straightforward about the obligations made in the past. Previous school boards and negotiating teams frankly weren’t very good to their future employees.

We have a gigantic unpaid and unfunded health care liability; the district estimates the cost at about $620 million over time, and we barely have started putting money aside for that. We are up to about $15 million a year, but at least it’s something. We need to do a lot more.

How much, $30 million?

We would need to contribute about $20 million per year on an ongoing basis so as not to dig ourselves any deeper in the hole. That is keeping our current benefits and keeping our commitments to retirees. We have as many retirees drawing health care benefits as we do current employees. It was frankly a bit of malfeasance by the previous school boards and previous labor negotiating partners that they never set up a program to start paying for this.

How are you proposing to fix that hole?

We haven’t even had the conversation. There has been no recognition that there is even an issue, and that’s malfeasance in itself. Some people don’t want to deal with it because they don’t want it to affect current negotiations—salary raises and whatever else people would like to have. So they pretend that magically this money is going to appear in the future.

In addition, the pension increases the state has obligated us to pay are going to triple in the next three or four years. Those are fixed costs that we can’t do anything about, so we have to budget for that as well.

Our total budget, including federal money, is about $550 million a year. We’ve never gone out to a competitive bid for our health care products; that’s crazy, too. We’ve got to do that. We could save $4 million to $6 million a year if we did that, and then we can plow that money back into retiree benefits.

Why do the district and the teachers’ union have such an antagonistic relationship?

It makes no sense to me. I worked in the labor movement for 10 years as a labor representative for the construction unions, the AFL-CIO, and you can absolutely have good relationships with management. Here, it seems like it’s the Hatfields and McCoys. No one knows how to put it behind us and try to hit the reset button.

We have plenty of drama ahead of us with the Trump administration, and if we’re fighting each other we are not going to be able to work to be unified against some real serious problems.

Your superintendent, José Banda, has said he won’t seek renewal of his contract when it expires this year. Sacramento has had six superintendents since 2008. Why so many?

It’s a sad fact that the average superintendent in California stays three and one-half years. The cause is a dual failure by the board and the superintendent.

From the board, lack of clear direction and involvement, changing priorities, hiring “saviors” from across the country instead of locally or internally. Frequent elections and viewing elected school board positions as “stepping stones” are a big culprit when it comes to driving out superintendents.

I also fault the all-too-common attitude of superintendents that boards are more of a nuisance than a partner, to be kept in the dark when things go wrong and their involvement in daily operations is to be minimized. That does not endear board members to their superintendents.

What are you looking for in a superintendent?

I am looking for a great candidate who knows Sacramento, our local elected partners and community, and our district. I also want a person who is willing to serve for many years and will make the board and community real partners. I want to look at internal candidates as well as those in state government, such as those serving in the California Department of Education.

Let’s talk about charter schools. The Trump administration is pushing for more of them. How do you see that evolving for your district?

We have a mixture of public and private charter schools. Private charters are completely separate from the school district personnel-wise, even though they are funded through our district. Employees at public charters work for the district. Both types can be successful, and I support parents’ right to choose whatever they think is best for them.

I believe, however, that our public schools can be the best schools, and I want to make our district the destination district by creating great academic programs that can out-compete any private charter school.

We’re doing that with Washington Elementary school, which we opened in September. I am really excited and proud of that one. We’ve created a fantastic academic program called an Esteem Academy—science, technology, engineering, arts and math starting in kindergarten. Enrollment started off very strong, and I think that school is going to be really successful.

It was a closed school, but we had a unique opportunity here to bring in a really cool academic program right in the middle of downtown Sacramento.

One area you have focused on is food—farm-to-fork, providing healthful food. Talk a little about that.

Sacramento is so well positioned for the farm-to-fork movement. We have school farms at many different schools. We’re also building a central kitchen, and our central kitchen task force has been meeting regularly, helping to usher this project through the bureaucracy.

The kitchen will enable us to make food in one central place every day. We can partner with local farms, have students in there learning everything from food preparation and cooking to the business side of it. And we will be able to send fresh food to our schools every single day, so our school cafeterias aren’t just opening up plastic packages and reheating food. They are serving good, fresh food.

SCUSD is a leader in school nutrition and in providing school meals for our students. It is little surprise that, in a district with a 72 percent Title I population, we have too many students who come to school hungry. Studies well document that providing meals for students has a direct, positive impact on student scores as well as student health and well-being.

We have implemented a universal school breakfast program so every student who needs a meal can have a meal. Our district has increased the number of students receiving breakfast by 20 percent since the 2013-14 school year with our universal program.

Our next steps to reach more children could include considering offering meals after the bell or in the classroom for those students who have later bus schedules or later arrivals and miss the regularly scheduled meal.

How do you think President Donald Trump is going to affect your job?

Certainly we are worried about cuts in funding and any directives that tie our hands. We’re worried because we have a state with a lot of immigrants that people are going to be discriminating against.

We took one early step by passing a resolution that made sure that everyone knows we are a safe-haven district, where we are not going to be a part of the enforcement of immigration laws. Our job is to educate every student who lives in our boundaries and assure that they can have a safe and productive education in Sacramento.

What else would you like readers to know?

I’d like them to know about what we are doing at some of our schools that I think is really exciting, really cutting edge programming. Take the case of William Land Elementary, in downtown Sacramento. It’s in a traditional Chinese-American neighborhood. There we have a Mandarin immersion program starting in kindergarten and going to fifth grade. It is one of the most popular academic programs in the district. We have people sending their kids here from all over the Sacramento Valley.

We need to duplicate programs like that one. We need a Spanish immersion program, for example. We have a Hmong immersion at one of our schools. Such programs attract students and families.

I already mentioned Washington Elementary, with our Esteem program. McClatchy High School is adding a new academy, a visual- and performing-arts academy that will be fully open in the next school year. It will be for kids who want to learn about media, or broadcasting. It will have cameras and computers that will allow them to do editing and programming, performing arts, more journalism, to have something else that we offer there.

I wish there was a way we could add space for another 300 to 400 students at McClatchy because there are so many great programs there.

So much more innovation and way more options for students?

That’s something I am really committed to doing. Another example is Leataata Floyd Elementary, in one of our more economically challenged neighborhoods. We’re going to have one of the biggest school farms in the entire state of California there. We will be breaking ground this year, and we are going to partner with the food literacy center to teach kids where food comes from, good eating and nutrition, and how to do healthful cooking, all of which they can bring back to their families as well.

At Darrell Steinberg’s swearing-in, he mentioned an internship program in city government for high school juniors and seniors. Any thoughts?

We’re excited to partner with Darrell on that program. He and I have talked about it several times. We’re hoping to have 400 to 500 of our students involved in that by this summer. There are so many good opportunities to partner with the city.

That’s something else I would like to highlight. We have really great relationships with with our city council and mayor and our county supervisors. We’re not squabbling and competing with each other; we’re working together to leverage the resources we have. We all serve the same people; our taxpayers are all the same.

For too long we didn’t coordinate our work. Now everyone is asking: How can we work together on new projects? There is some really great innovation happening. Supervisor Phil Serna has been a great partner, Councilman Steve Hansen has been a great partner, Mayor Steinberg has already been a great partner. I am really excited about the kinds of things we can do together—parks, summertime with pools, after-school programs—and the internships program is a great new opportunity.